The Other Gods
by Futtlescish
Summary: If there is Chaos, there must also by extrapolation be Order. An overview of the Gods of Order and how they relate to their more well-known chaotic counterparts.
1. Chapter 1

Solkan, God of Law

While the Gods of Order are sometimes called the Gods of Law, only Solkan truly deserves that moniker. Representing truth, justice, and vengeance, Solkan is the God that can be most accurately described as "Good". However, this does not mean he is benevolent, compassionate, or even cares about people at all. Solkan has but one desire—that everything proceeds in a perfectly predictable and logical manner. This is the root of his famed opposition to Chaos, but Solkan is incensed by everything that does not follow directly from physical laws, including magic and even free will. Solkan appears as a shining paladin or stern judge, ready to mete out punishment on those who violate the natural order. In theory Solkan's nature is that of meekness and humility, but the constant violations of natural law have left him in a fit of perpetual smoldering rage. He may finally rest once his idea of order is restored to the universe, but until then all magicians, worshippers of Chaos, and seekers of freedom must fear the wrath of the Avenger.

Solkan's Daemons appear as great masses of interlocking pulleys and gears. While the precise form these elements coalesce into depends on the Daemon's rank and function, the individual components are all identical. As such, it is extremely hard to tell one Daemon of Solkan from another, and it is almost impossible to pick out an individual from a group. This is less important than it would seem, as these Daemons' uniformity is not just visual flair. When a group of these Daemons have been wounded, they will link their gears together to form an entity as powerful as any Daemon Prince. Many tales have been told of warriors who were certain of victory over Solkan's Daemons, only do be reduced to quivering masses of indignity when the cogs assembled to tower over them.

If any of the Gods of Order can be said to be as well known as the Gods of Chaos, it would be Solkan. Many who seek to oppose the Chaos Gods invoke Solkan in his aspect as the Avenger, but far fewer truly worship him. The cults of Solkan are closer to a business than a religion. Unlike the unruly messes of other cults, they are a strict and absolute hierarchy, with every member having a clearly defined position. Each position is prescribed a list of tasks that they must perform to the exclusion of all else, even basic needs of survival. Some of these tasks may further the cult's aims, but more often they are completely trivial, routines for the sake of routines. The only time a cultist may stray from his schedule is when he witnesses an opportunity to punish a particularly flagrant violator of the law. A cultist who performs exemplary in his duties and reaches the highest rank will gain access to Solkan's power and find than nothing is able to stop them from carrying out their tasks, even the most powerful magics.

Common knowledge hold Solkan to be the counterpart of Khorne, but this is not the case. He is in fact Order's answer to Tzeentch. While Tzeentch is the God of deception and change, Solkan is the God of honesty and routine. Cultists of Solkan never lie, and almost always work to preserve the status quo whenever possible. While Tzeentch's plans are complex and inscrutable, Solkan's are simple and to the point. It is said that Solkan is the only God Tzeentch truly fears, as his servants' devotion to patterns make them immune to manipulation and he has devoted all of his metaphysical power into finding new ways to dispel magic. Woe to the follower of Tzeentch who thinks that a servant of SOlkan will be an easy mark, for he will find that his power means nothing in the face of a sealed mind and a closed fist.


	2. Chapter 2

Arianka, Goddess of Discipline

Just as humans believe in the Gods, Arianka believes in humanity. Arianka is the Goddess of discipline, temperance, and stoicism, making her the only God of Order that is not hostile to free will. However, her affection is less of and admiration for it and more of a challenge. Arianka is a true elitist, believing that that there are two fundamentally different sorts of people—those capable of controlling their emotions, and those that cannot. The former are truly worthy and to be invested with power, while the latter are irrelevant vermin who only serve to get in the way. Because of this philosophy Arianka rarely interferes with the world directly, spending most of her time self-imprisoned in a box of her own making to discourage her followers from taking the easy way out and calling upon her for power. Arianka's appearance varies based on who she interacts with. To people she considers weak she takes the form of a regal and imperious queen clothed in resplendent gowns and emanating an aura of authority. But to those she sees as strong, she is just a plain old woman wearing a nondescript sheet. After all, they are they are superior specimens and do not deserve to be cowed.

Compared to those of the other Gods, Arianka's Daemons are not an imposing sight. Most of the time they are but shapeless beige blobs that undulate towards their destination at a snail's pace. They can reshape their protoplasmic mass into any form they desire, although they almost always use minimum effort—they could in theory pick any lock by creating a perfect replica of a key, but will instead just smash down the door. This has led an atmosphere of derision against Arianka's Daemons by occultists, who have nicknamed them "Daemons of sloth" in reference to their slow movements and apparent disdain towards effort. However, more learned scholars of the occult know not to treat these creatures lightly. Instead of wasting their powers needlessly like so many other Daemons, these ones conserve their strength, and thwn strike with all their might at the perfect moment. Other Daemons may inspire fear or awe, but Arianka's are more likely to actually get the job done.

As could probably be inferred, Arianka's cult is composed almost entirely of dispassionate stoics who seek to isolate themselves from the temptations of the physical world. They are usually loosely organized with each member primarily looking out for themselves. One might expect that that the lairs of these cults are barren and desolate, but they are actually often filled with luxurious furniture, rich food, and strong alcohol. This is not because they intend to partake in this decadence, but it rather serves as training to resist temptation. Any cultist that breaks his vow of stoicism in the face of these delights will not remain in the cult, as they are soon to be ushered out by either a stern word or a boot to the rump. Unlike the followers of other Gods, Arianka's disciples spend little time at prayer or persecuting enemies of their faith. Instead they fill their days honing themselves into the best versions of themselves they can be, so that they may gain access to their God's power. Arianka'g magic is not flashy or excessive, but it raises one's physical attributes to extreme levels while granting almost total control over the body. Other magicians may be able to better affect the world, but nothing can surpass a blessing of Arianka at affecting the self.

It does not take a scholar of the arcane to see that Arianka is Order's equivalent of Slaanesh. Her insistence on strict discipline and self-improvement is the direct opposite of Slaanesh's focuses of excess and decadence, and her slow, sterile blob daemons find their inverse in the sensual, hyperactive daemonettes. What is somewhat more surprising is the frequency with which cultusis witch from one God to the other. Arianka's followers will occasionally snap under the pressure of being exposed to forbidden luxurie vfs and plunge headfirst into indulgence, while some Slaanesh's followers will eventually burn out their sense of pleasure due to sheer overuse. Their former compatriots tend to act like these people never existed—after all, they must not have had enough willpower in the first place.


	3. Chapter 3

Alluminas, God of Consistency

Alluminas is one of the more well known Gods of Order, but also one of the most misunderstood. Popularly referred to as the "God of Light", he in fact has no more than a tangential association with the element. Instead, Alluminas seeks continuity and preservation, attempting to keep everything in its ideal state. Unfortunately for his would-be followers, this includes people. Though he derives his powers from belief like all Gods, Alluminas makes no attempt to convey any teachings or even provide a comprehensible belief system. To him, humans are just another errant profusion of chaos to be returned to their natural state of perfect immutability. Because of this, he has very few worshippers that actually understand his motives and goals. Alluminas' physical form is essentially indescribable, being a shape that cannot exist in nature and that the human mind is incapable of conceiving. This is just an academic concern, as all who lay their eyes upon Alluminas are immediately frozen solid anyway.

Alluminas' Daemons take after the form of their God, glowing with a blinding light and being comprised of bizarre crystalline shards stacked in such a way that it looks like they would collapse in a light breeze. Despite their appearance, these Daemons are no more fragile than any other, and indeed are usually more resistant to change. Sometimes referred to as "angels" by those unaware of their origin, these Daemons are infamous for their ability to focus light into deadly beams, searing through armor and melting flesh off bones. However, those who have somehow survived a protracted encounter with these Daemons know that the true danger comes from their ability to halt the flow of time. The longer one spends around these Daemons, the more their personal timeline is compressed and it becomes harder and harder to affect the world around them. Eventually time comes to a halt, and the Daemon's erstwhile foe becomes little more than a statue, frozen still as time flows around them.

While many proclaim allegiance to Alluminas in some form, they usually worship his simplistic aspect as the "God of Light" rather than anything resembling reality. As Alluminas has no desire to make himself anything other than utterly inscrutable, becoming one of his cultists requires a studious disposition and an intense dedication to discovering what their God actually wants. Even those who successfully manage to decipher Alluminas' arcane mysteries usually fail when they learn what Alluminas truly wants of them: for them to do absolutely nothing. In tribute to a God who despises motion or real change, these cultists live a completely sedentary existence, never moving out of their comfort zones or doing anything risky. If one were to actually try and affect the world, they would find that their loyalty to Alluminas has given them many boon, like shooting freezing rays of light and even being able to alter time itself. Alas, by the time most these disciples unlock this power they have fallen into a state of perpetual lethargy, never to truly act again.

As the God most representative of true Order Alluminas is inherently opposed to all the Chaos Gods, but his direct parallel is surely Khorne. The reasoning behind this is obvious on the surface—it is rather hard to inflict death and destruction on something that cannot be altered. But the two Gods' enmity goes beyond Alluminas simply standing in Khorne's way. In his own twisted way, Khorne stands for innovation and development as well as destruction, even if those innovations are just new machines of war and the development is becoming better at rending people's flesh. Khorne is offended not just by the fact that Alluminas wants to keep the world static, but that he cuts people off from realizing their natural compulsion towards violence. Khorne dreams of the day he will overcome Alluminas and smash his grotesque preservations against the hard wall of time./p


	4. Chapter 4

Mardagg, God of Annihilation

Whenever the Gods of Order are listed, their number is invariably given as three. When questioned why they have one less member than the Gods of Chaos, scholars will blather something about cosmic inbalance or try to quickly change the subject. But the truth is that a fourth God of Order indeed exists—he is just so vile that no one has though of associating him with that particular pantheon. Like the other Gods of Order, Mardagg's greatest desire is to purge Chaos from the world. Unlike them, he has no particular inclination to preserve the world in the process. Instead, Mardagg believes that anything even remotely capable of profligating Chaos must be scourged from the face of reality. While he has so far only focused on the extermination of all life, he plans to eventually destroy even the stars themselves to stop Chaos from getting a foothold. Mardagg has nothing but contempt towards those who claim to worship him—if they really believed in his ideals they would have already killed themselves.

Mardagg's Daemons are actually better known than the God himself. Often mistaken for servants of Khorne due to their predilection for violence, these grim specters exist solely to take lives. Called "death elementals" these creatures have no fixed form, rather appearing as whatever the viewer considers the form of death. To they uncreative they most often appear as massive skeletons with black cloaks and scythes, but others perceive them in a myriad of different forms. Ultimately its hysical appearance does not matter much, as Mardagg's Daemons do not often engage in physical combat. Instead they simply leech the life out of everyone in a given area, focusing only on specific indicuals of they happen to be hostile. While these Daemons might actually be the most powerful of all, they have little desire or mental capability to do anything other than spread death. Unlike the Daemons of other Gods they never form into warbands, instead wandering the cosmos as individuals. This is good news for most, as even a small force of these Daemons could turn armies to ash.

Mardagg's cults are such in name only. The God despises his worshippers, as they contribute to the work of chaos is objective is to destroy. By his twisted logic, any mortal who shared his viewpoint would immediately commit suicide. In reality, things are slightly more complicated. Mardagg's worshippers split into roughly two groups. The first genuinely believes in the dogma of their God but assumes he would appreciate if they contributed to more death than their own. They are misinformed, and in practice indistinguishable from ordinary spree killers. The second are not really worshippers at all but rather exploiters. Using their knowledge of the magic of the other Gods, they conduct their own rituals to steal Mardagg's divine power and use it for their own ends. Using this siphoned energy they can bring death to anyone or extend their own lives to unnatural lengths. These cultists must be careful, though—once Mardagg notices them there is nothing they can do to save themselves.

If there is any God that Nurgle despises more than Tzeentch, it is Mardagg. Nurgle is a connoisseur of rot, an artist of decay, appreciating nothing more than the slow and painful withering of a life until that it reaches its end in the most pathetic state imaginable. Mardagg is the opposite—he wants everything to die as quickly and efficiently as possible. Nurgle will spend eons perfecting the perfect virus and the moment it infects its target Mardagg will reduce the host to ash, ruining his fun. What annoys Nurgle even more is that Mardagg does not even seem to understand than Nurgle is his rival, viewing him as just another dimwitted purveyor of life. Nurgle is rarely roused from his routine of leisurely pollution, but the presence of Mardagg is enough to force him to action. If Mardagg succeeds in his ambitions, the cycle of growth and death will ultimately end not in stagnation as Nurgle hopes, but mere oblivion.

**_Sorry for the delay everyone, Mardagg killed my computer._**


End file.
